A story of impacts
by Ottereight
Summary: We all know Casablanca. Bogart's tough character, the fight for duty and love... But what happened behind the scenes ? Especially between a little hungarian actor and a tall american one ? Let's find out.


_Michael Curtiz, Peter Lorre and Humphrey Bogart belong to themselves, Ugarte and Rick belong to Warner Bros, Spade and Cairo belong to Warner Bros too._

_I dedicate this story to two of the best actors ever : Peter Lorre and Humphrey Bogart. Peter Lorre is Joel Cairo in The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Ugarte in Casablanca (1944). Humphrey Bogart is Spade in The Maltese Falcon and Rick in Casablanca. I don't have any idea of what the life on the set of those two films looked like. It's just some fantasy coming out of my deranged brain. Rose never existed either._

_Lorre's and Bogart's sentences in italic come from movies._

* * *

_« You know, Rick, I have many a friend in Casablanca, but somehow, just because you despise me, you are the only one I- »_

« Cut ! » shouted Curtiz while bursting in the set, interrupting the actor in the middle of his sentence. Peter Lorre turned his head slowly, the gaze tinged with surprise. His huge eyes were eating his face when he letted this expression show through.

« We're doing a break, boys, » said the director with a gesture of the arms. All the crew were working for hours on this scene and they were exhausted. Bogart and Lorre insisted for going over again every time the scene depleased them, even if all the crew thought the quality was more than good enough. They did it, redid it and redit it again , and no matter how many times the script was played in front of them, every one in the assistance kept being stroke by the perfect duo of the two protagonists. Even the insufferable Curtiz stopped them rarely, carried away by everyone's admiration. However, he spotted the gaunt and tired faces of all the crew. The electricians were exhausted, the make-up artists blinded by the unceasing lights, and the figurants weary of doing and redoing the same walk behind the two main actors of the scene in order to imitate the buzzing activity of Rick's bar.

Sitting in a corner of the studio, hands holding tight her notebook, Rose Dogerry was dreaming. Since the beginning of the shooting of _Casablanca_, she was here. Her task was easy : bring the coffees, attend to every need of the actors and globally take care of everything that no one wanted to do.

Yes, easy, but payed a starvation wage.

Rose couldn't care less.

Why was she staying all day running all over the set for a few dollars ?

_To help her mother that didn't earn much since they left France in a hurry,_ she usually answered.

That was the _official_ version. A very approximative view of things, in fact.

The two actors rose from their seat to stretch their legs a bit during some few minutes of rest. They were immersed in a discussion in which Rose didn't understand a single word as they were speaking in a low and quick voice. Her english was perfectible – in fact, it was a disaster.

She went out of her thoughts when Curtiz called her name with his ogre voice. The coffees. Even though she had a very poor grasp of the language of Shapespeare, everything became clear when someone was shouting at her with such a threatening look. She rose suddenly while stuttering unintelligible apologies and went to heat some water in the little kitchen, at the back of the studio.

The studio was a real hive of activity that was bugging all day, and in which the actors and the director were just the most visible part. It was a factory a factory that was heating, puffing and growling, always in a hurry, always at the highest range of productivity. From her 5'2" Rose was jostled by a horde of make-up artists, technicians, electricians and set designers whom age went from fifteen to fifty years old. At the cost of many efforts and contortions the girl managed to bring the tray with the coffees unharmed to all the shooting crew. While distribuating them, she looked for Ugarte, the trafficker of _laissez-passer, _and Rick, the owner of the bar where all the plot took place their performers decided to leave their characters' part or a few minutes to take some rest. Therefore, there were two cups on the tray when her clumsy distribution ended, two cups intended for the two actors she never even talked to. She was barely daring to name them with anything else than a quavering « Mr. Lorre and Mr. Bogart ».

The echo of a conversation that seemed to be coming from upstairs caught her attention it came from another room of the set, Rick's assumed office, a room you could reach by a spiral staircase. Rose held the tray against her and climbed the steps. _Go in, give the coffees, go out, _she was repeating internally to herself while going upstairs. _Whatever you go, do not open your mouth. You better avoid stuttering during five minutes just to drop three sentences with the thickest French accent on earth._

When she reached the second floor, she instantly recognized the two voices talking to each other one was Ugarte's, soft andhushed, and the other was Rick's, deep and hoarse.

The throat choked by anxiety, she knocked the wooden door, almost spilling the two coffees on the floor as her body was refusing to obey her.

It's Bogart that opened the door, turning his head back towards Lorre that was half seating on the desk, at the center of the room. None of them seemed to understand the reason of the presence of a 15-years-old girl at the door. Lorre's huge eyes staring her almost made her run away.

« What's the matter ? » asked the taller man after a few minutes of a deadly silence.

« I- I came here to bring you coffee, » said Rose in a faltering english. Under the pressure her mother tongue's accent was so obvious that her sentence became almost incomprehensible.

« Mr. Bogart. » she added while lowering her gaze. Lorre stood on his feets in a little leap and came to take his cup while making a slight smile.

« That's very kind of you, » he said.

She barely recognized his voice. It was so drawling, so terrible and at once so sweet in the movies – and now he was talking in a faultless english with only a few Germanic notes coming out. When she was a figurant for_ The maltese falcon _she never had the occasion to hear him out of the scenes. And even so... she didn't know why, but this actor she was seeing for the first time strangely marked her, and she felt a little bounce in her chest when she heard that an assitant were required for his new movie, _Casablanca _(« assistant » was pretty excessive. The word « maid of all work » was far more accurate, but maybe it wasn't sales-orientated enough.) Since she ran away from Europe to the United States with her mother, she was amassing wretched jobs, and even though this one wasn't more paid than a barmaid post in a run-down bar of Brooklyn, she could at least do something she liked.

For exemple, wearing this yellow star badge wasn't something she liked.

« Thanks, _dear, _» said Bogart while he lifted the cups to his lips.

She lowered her gaze even more, if it was possible, something invisible lying heavy on her heart. She'd never hope... She'd never think that a little fifteen-years-old-kid could receive affection words from the great Humphrey Bogart.

Rose held the tray with the two empty cups pitching on it, then opened the door and went out – she was worried to see her chances to make a giant blunder increase with each passing minute.

The impact went _very _painfully.

During the collision the two cups fell from their place to break with a thud noise on the tiled floor, her nose stroke the upper shelf with a sound of dislocated creak and the door shut down behind her as for ending the incident.

It wasn't the door leading to the stairs, however.

In her anxiousness she just bursted in a broom cupboard.

The girl smothered her groan by putting a hand on her mouth. A flood of warm and red blood was dripping from her nose. Pain was rushing. Stronger and stronger. So strong that her sight was blurred during a moment, avoiding her from thinking. The shelf her nose inadvertently hugged wore the mark of the contact and was now painted with a few dorps of blood. Iron boxes that were putted into storage on it were still vibrating after the violence of the impact.

Her legs shaked like leaves for a few moments that seemed like centuries to her, but the black spots darkening her field of vision slowly disappeared.

Leaning against the wall she managed to stand up. She needed to leave this room.

Her hand setted down on the handle and a shiver ran through her body.

If she went out now, _what were they going to think of her ?_

The sight of a blushing and nose-smacked Rose crossing the room by running to take the right door was horrible to her. She didn't have the choice : she had to stay in this broom cupboard until the two actors get back to the film set, at the end of the pause.

She sat again while pain kept rushing and rushing back by phases.

Her gaze was attracted by the little gap between the frame of the door and the edge of the latter. The gap was small but large enough for inquisitive eyes like hers to see what happened outside.

Rose couldn't even control herself.

Lorre was sitting again on the desk and roaring with laughter after a joke by the american. The hungarian lighted a cigarette and lifted it to his lips... A slight wisp of smoke leaked from his mouth and blurred the two men to Rose's sight for a few seconds, before clearing away in the air.

« You should smoke less, Peter, » he whispered, watching the last wreaths make their way to the ceiling. In her cupboard, she silently aproved. She often saw Mr. Bogart with a cigarette stuck in his mouth, but far less than the other one – it wasn't very difficult.

She couldn't deny that when Mr. Lorre smoke he had a certain charm.

« You see me dying of a stroke, Boggie ? » replied Lorre, laughing and taking another draw. The other one laughed too, but in a more forced way than his partner.

« You die after thirty minutes in the movie, you'd better be careful » said Bogart in an attempt to change the topic. He was pacing the room with a slow step, and leaned for a few instants on the desk Lorre was sitting upon.

Rose saw those two play this scene a thousand times at least it always gave her a twige in the heart because it was so deeply moving, and her two idols always found fault with something. It was the scene where Ugarte was arrested by the police for traffic ; and where Rick, impassive, watched him being taken away by the police captain Renault, ignoring his pleas.

« _Rick ! Rick ! Hide me, Rick ! _»

She gave a start and putted a hand on her mouth Lorre had suddenly turned toward his partner to say his final line, the last he uttered before disappearing forever. But he said it all of a sudden, so passionately, with so much terror in his voice, that even Bogart was fascinated for an instant. Then he decided to play the game and Rick instantaneously appeared in his eyes, the gaze he wore when he was the bar owner on the screen.

It was strange, unreal, like a dream : she had the impression to see the everyday life of those men so serious, of those two stars, of those two inaccessible individuals. She felt at once the awful feeling to intrude in their private life and at once she could'nt take her eyes off the frame even for a second. She could'nt help it.

Rick stepped forward to eye Ugarte scornfully. Their look were deep inside each other, linked by an invisible thread. United in a sphere with only the two of them. Ugarte, with shaking hands, holded them out slightly in front of him toward the only person that could still save him. In all his soul there was the shiver of the man who will die and who knows it and who only has one chance left to say alive.

And all of a sudden both of us bursted into laughter, together, exactly at the same time. As if Ugarte and Rick suddenly decided to pretend they were Peter Lorre and Humphrey Bogart.

« In _The Maltese Falcon _either you don't help me a lot » said Lorre by taking another draw of cigarette.

« You think our characters are compatible ? The macho and manly Sam Spade helping the cinema's biggest queer ever. » The american ran a hand through the perfectly slicked-back hair of the other one – Curtiz laid stress on this detail of the haircut – and coiled a lock around his finger to imitate the waves of Cairo's.

« I prefered you with curly hair, Lazló. »

The latter felt a little twige in the heart when he heard his very first name – his _true_ name – that he rarely heard since he arrived in the United States. No, even before : since he chosed his stage name, for the end of his theater yars and the beginning of his cinema ones, he must had heard it only two or three times. He vaguely remembered giving it to Humphrey, one of his best friends here in America, but even him never called it that way. It was a more intimate name, a more private one, more personnal than Peter. It was the name of the little hungarian fascinated by the show and not of the successful american actor he became. This name had a little taste of home.

« Then why do you hit me when I _frisk _you to check if you don't have an age-old marble falcon statue inlaid with jewels hidden in your pocket ? » he finally answered, one lip half curled up, revealing his dimple.

« When I think of how many times we repeated the slap scene... And it was you that wanted to do it again and again pretending your acting wasn't convincing enough ! »

« If you think I appreciated it you're totally wrong. » did Peter Lorre in the most serious way ever, altough a slight smile appeared at the corner of his mouth in the last syllable of his sentence.

Humphrey roared with laughter and did a step toward Peter.

_« You'll take it and like it ! _» he said before pushing the smaller one en arrière, way less seriously however attacking Peter than he was attacking Joel Cairo.

Peter's knees knocked against the desk and he fell over.

By the most logical order of things, by a basic instinct of self-preservation, he caught Humphrey's collar and dragged him down in his fall.

The impact sent a quivering shiver in all the circuits of Rose's body but everything happened in one second and she barely had the time to blink that it was all over.

« Pe-Peter. »

Humphrey Bogart rose oddly, in something like a spasm or a reflex. Rose – no, in fact, _nobody –_ ever saw him in a state like that – and Bogart himself was wondering why his face was suddenly on fire and his hands were slightly shaking. He needed to calm down. The incident was over. He turned the heels but he found hard to control his legs.

Still on the floor, the hungarian couldn't make a sound. He took his hand to his lips. But no blood was dripping from it. The tingling sensation he was feeling since his fall did'nt come from here. His brain had switched off for an instant and even a few seconds later he could barely come round.

« Humphrey what did – what is – »

His partner turned toward him, stopping his slow pace around the room's walls, and was agitated by a nervous little laugh, that turned slowly into a frank and clear one – a bit strange however. This scene was so ridiculous. No need to make such a fuss about it. It's not even worth worrying for a...

Humphrey stared Peter's face as if he was at least understanding what happened. Obviously the other one still hadn't figured it out. He was still on the ground, and he didn't move an inch since his fall. Blinking, he finally stood up and straightened out his suit slightly crumpled.

« Look what you did to my shirt. » he said, throwing out a sidelong glance at his friend and hoping it could ease the strained.

The american staid quiet a moment then said while looking his partner in the eyes : « Peter, did we just... did we just... did we just accidentally just for a moment... it's stupid but... did our mout- our faces... like... _touched _?

In a flash of consciousness, the memory of what just happened suddenly came back to Peter's brain. Yes, what he said was perfectly true and correct. He remembered now each second of the fall and of what happened just _then_. So he didn't know why he answered laughingly :

« No, of course ! Your face stopped at at least... At least five inches of mine. »

A little voice in his head was whispering « lies ».

« Lazló, we– »

« End of the pause ! » shouted a voice, coming from downstairs. It seemed like the voice had woken up the two actors, that looked all around them with a slight air of panic, as if both of them were coming back from a nightmare or a dream. Running a hand through his hair to re-arrange it immaculately. Lorre opened the door for Bogart that walked past him without really looking at him in the eyes. The door shut again in a muffled sound and then everything was quiet.

Rose's head was spinning. She only noticed it when the two men were gone ; surely she forgot to breath sufficiently and she now felt her temples pound violently, calling for oxygen.

It was hard for her to focus her ideas, and even to control her body completely. The end of the pause meant the return on the set for her as well and Curtiz had already enough grounds to shout at her that she must add some by arriving late. Leaning against the walls she stood up on her feet, but when she tried to make a step forward, her legs collapsed under her again. She was forcing herself to think it was the impact against the shelf that was reaching his brain with delay, but her entire body was screaming the true reason.

She had to encourage herself by whispering in order to open the cupboard's door. The light was almost blinding for her that just spent ten minutes eyes half-closed in the darkness. She bent her knees, hanging on the door as it was a lifebuoy and miraculously crossed the distance that remained between her and the door Bogart and Lorre took a few minutes before. It seemed like she was finally recovering the use of her legs, and when she reached the bottom of the stairs, she was almost running. She went through the crowd of technicians as fast as possible and regained her position at the arrière of the set, where her notebook was waiting for her.

She didn't really know why, but her nose was bleeding again.

Rose raised her eyes toward the scene on the film set and tears welled in her eyes without her being able to control it. Rick and Ugarte were acting on stage they were acting as if nothing happened and as if they have always been those characters. Truly, she couldn't understand where those tears were coming from if it was the broken bone of her nose, the fascination she had for the two actors, the guilt of having seen a scene of deep privacy – or the pain she was sustaining by knowing someone just kissed in front of her_ the_ man that was for her...

It was the man that right now was spending his last minutes on the set, before being taken away in front of Bogart's eyes to the Casablanca jail where he would die. That is how the movie was written – how the script was – this is the way everything is supposed to happen – that was written down, somewhere, on the scenario sheet – why was it impossible to have a script too in real life ? Her head was buzzing with questions from everywhere. How was it possible to be so close physically to someone – she was barely ten feet from this man – and at the same time be as far as it was even possible ?

She knew perfectly that someone like this little actor with huge sad eyes would never be a part of her world.

The only words that were coming to her brain, oddly, were in english. Sometimes she felt like she couldn't really express her despair in french, but the english language possessed a peculiar strength that allowed her to put words on unspeakable emotions. She repeated these words, slowly, in her head, until the pain finally eased.

_Lazló Löwenstein was thinking._

_Since a few days ago he noticed the way this young french girl was looking at him sometimes. He saw that from time to time, when he was looking around him or when he was speaking to Humphrey, a pair of clear brown eyes were observing him surreptitiously. He was married. Married for ten years to a woman that he loved and that he had always known. Sometimes the sad small eyes of the kid saddened him – but what could he do about it ?_

_He vaguely remembered she was already there for _The maltese falcon.

_Bogart's deep voice brought him back to reality and forced him to follow the course of the scene._

_That scene... Curtiz didn't know the technicians didn't know McConnell, in charge of directing the actors, did'nt know and was pulling out his hair __because of it__ ; even Humphrey didn't know and maybe himself were fighting to ignore this. To ignore why he wanted to do this scene again and again. This feeling disturbing and pleasant at the same time, he already knew it he felt it each time __Bogart and him were shining on stage together._

_As he once dreamed to stay in Joel Cairo's shoes forever..._

_Now he wanted to be Ugarte for evermore._

* * *

_Hope you enjoyed it. Do not hesitate to notice me any grammar mistake in the comments. Feel free to give advices too so I can't write better fanfics nex time !_


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